Assignment Details

Purpose of the assignment

This assignment is designed to get you to think more deeply abouthowyou might solve the management challenge of our partner organization andwhyyour chosen approach could be the "best way." The main focus is on you discovering the best possible organizational process in realizing the proposed direction of the company. This means you have to propose and justify one or two frameworks that help to solve the management challenge.

Requirements for the assignment

• Re-state the problem in the context of your chosen management perspective as a researchable question.
• Undertake a literature review that helps you to better understand the nature of the management challenge. How does theory inform a solution and what (if anything) has been tried before to solve this kind of problem? E.g. has this challenge occurred before? Maybe in another industry? Has it been solved?)
• Identify and select appropriate tools, models and theories that help you to understand the problem through the lens you have chosen. These should be from scholarly and recognized practitioner sources.
• Write report justifying why your research approach to solving the management challenge should be adopted.

AirCity Case Study

Q1: Can you tell us a little bit about your brand?

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of serviced apartment owners face difficulties in finding security and management personnel due to the return of home workers. This presents an opportunity for AirCity. We offer management services through the use of technology. Our approach includes a facial recognition camera system for apartment security, digitized payment processes for accommodation and repairs, and the use of technology solutions for overall management.

By employing this approach, AirCity automates 70% of the management process. Instead of requiring three individuals as before, you can imagine now we only need one person and one machine. The company provides a service package to charge 5% of total revenue.

However, AirCity's essence lies in being a real estate management company that leverages technology to reduce costs. Their model does not compete directly with traditional real estate management units but rather supports them. Consequently, their target market is Grade B apartments in Ho Chi Minh City.

The AirCity model bears similarities to Different (Australia). The company raised $25 million last year with investment led by Antler, an existing investor in AirCity. In this industry, companies generate revenue not only from management fees but also from repair services, leasing, and financial connections. While the revenue may not be substantial, customer loyalty tends to be high.

Within the apartment management segment, AirCity is currently collaborating with several Grade B or lower apartment management units in the pilot phase. One challenge they face is reducing payment costs associated with monthly management fees, electricity, and water bills. The current manual collection process or integration of e-wallets results in the management bearing approximately 2% of the cost. Through the AirCity system, payments are integrated into QR codes and directly linked to the customer's bank account. This approach cuts costs by eliminating intermediary services for payment processing.

Shortly, we are going to launch some new products that help to complete the first version of our smart city ecosystem vision. They includes thegioiphong.com - a website to find a long-term rental rooms, AirCity Work app - a mobile app for handyman, cleaner, property managers, etc. and AirCity Resident - a mobile app with ChatGPT-powered to support our users.

Q2: Can you tell us about your business's structure, including industry, company size, and/or years in business?

Our business's structure include 3 main parts: 1. Property Management service: that we install IoT hardware devices, digitize the data of property, tenants, contracts, invoices, and build communication channels.

2. Home services: these are tasks which are related to maintenance, fixing, etc. for the property.

3. Life services: to fulfill the demand for our residents (or tenants) such as help them to find a rental room, cooking, jobs, etc.

The industry that we are targeting is serviced apartments and condo buildings. This market starts at 2 million units and growing to 5 millions in 2030.

Our leadership team has more than 30 combined years of experiences in proptech field and have many strong advisors who has achieved some milestones in the proptech industry in Southeast Asia (PropertyGuru, 99.co)

Q3: What are the strengths of your company in your business, industry?

The challenge here is how to optimize the operations cost to gain the gross profit and how to unlock new services (home & life) to gain more revenue streams.

It's impossible to do without technology.

Others can't do it because they are based heavily on manual, and it's not easy to go digital transformation, it takes years.

I took 5 years to train more than 50 traditional property management companies to go digital but failed.

So how come we do it better this time?

Because now we do management service to serve the end user which is tenants. It's different than before that we do SaaS for property management companies.

Q4: Can you tell us about the problem your company is currently facing? What are the challenges you need to solve, why does this problem have a significant impact on your business? Are there any current trends in your industry?

With AirCity, we want to become the head operations center of the whole city to bring a secure, safe, convenient, and green life to every resident.

To do that, the first step we need to digitize all info on buildings, and residents. Then, centralize data, devices, and processes on the platform, run automated at most at scale. Last but not least, integrate with suppliers to bring life services and home services to any demand from residents and landlords.

Currently, our challenge is how to become a top of mind brand (thegioiphong.com) for students to find a suitable room. It's not that easy. In Vietnam market there are so many listing website but it doesn't have any trusted platform to help young people like students or professionals, expats to find a good place to stay when they need to move to study or to work. How to build a trust brand that even in the future, a potential tenant doesn't need to go tour the house before decide to rent it. They can easily pick a room before they travel from their hometown to HCMC and pay a deposit before check-in.

Also, another challenge is how to convince landlords to collaborate with AirCity to let us manage their house because we are a technology-driven property management so it takes time to educate landlords to understand our values and decide to go with us. It's still hard to break this cold start problem.

Lastly, we are thinking about the net zero problem that we may apply technology and/or partners in solar roof, battery/ electric vehicle to work with us to reduce the carbon footprint for each property that we're managing. How to help our tenants live a green life that is eco-friendly and still satisfy with the living demands.

Q5: What other solutions have you tried if any?

We're doing some partnership or collaborations with trusted brands such as Momo, VNU, Busmap, etc. to help us reach potential clients as well as students.

We're planning to verify and certify houses to be an eco-friendly house when they matches all our criterias.

Lastly, we organize some workshop to invite and share about what we're doing for our community (landlords, property managers, students) to gain the awareness and support from them

Source links:

This Founder was willing to risk it all to pursue his entrepreneurship desires

https://vietnamnet.vn/en/vietnam-s-house-leasing-startup-dreams-of-becoming-unicorn-2046 386.html

https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-au/finance/different-raises-25-mn-series-b-round/386671

I need to have detailed guidance to do that assignment. Include references, and appendices if any. This assignment requires about one thousand and five hundred words. Thanks a lot.